Midlothian roar back from early fright to win PL opener
![Colin Walker skipped his rink to victory for Midlothian](https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/webimg/legacy_elm_60015886.jpg?crop=3:2,smart&width=640&quality=65&enable=upscale)
![Colin Walker skipped his rink to victory for Midlothian](/img/placeholder.png)
Cumbernauld stormed into an astonishing 25-4 lead after three ends having made whirlwind starts on three rinks across the carpet with scores of 9-0, 9-1, and 6-0, negated only by a 3-1 loss on the fourth.
But a superb comeback, culminating in double-figure wins on the rinks skipped Danny McDougall and Colin Walker, lifted Midlothian team morale and, supported by a peel for Graeme Archer, handsomely covered the narrow setback suffered by team captain Ronnie Duncan.
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Hide AdThe home team’s response to that shock 21-shot deficit came in the shape of a 32-3 blitz over ends 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Midlothian’s 36-28 capture of that first seven-end phase set them up for a match supremacy of 30-20 on the second phase and 39-30 on the third.
McDougall produced a fiery response of 4, 2, 2, 4 (1), 4. 1 to skip Neil Linton, debutant Liam McKay and Jimmy Cullen from 0-9 to 17-10 then remained on fire with a super count of 6 and a sizzling run of 5, 2, 4 to win 36-20.
Walker was always a dominant figure as he skipped Ian Forbes, Paul Innes and Dougie Russell to a 24-11 victory having emerged with the upper hand on 14 of the 21 ends.
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Hide AdArcher and his front three of Scott Runciman, Craig Hodge and Andrew Caldwell won their end count 12/9 but had to settle for a 22-22 peel having suffered heavy losses of a 6 and a 5.
Duncan managed to skip Jamie Macnab, Ian Flemin, and AJ Knight back into a winning position at 13-12 from 0-6 but collapsed to 22-13 down before a late rally reduced the extent of their defeat to two shots (23-25).